The Brontë Parsonage Museum was recently awarded £50000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund to support an exciting programme of developments that will take place at the museum in January 2010. This blog is a forum for people in and around Haworth to keep up to date with the project, and make comments and suggestions

Friday, 27 November 2009

Back in October the Brontë Parsonage Museum issued an invitation to anyone who thought they might own artefacts relating to the Brontës or historic Haworth to come to our ‘Brontëana surgery’ and find out more about them. The museum was keen to encourage local people to use the museum’s resources to find out more about items in their possession, and was offering free, expert advice on such material to people living in and around Haworth as part of thie Heritage Lottery funded project.

As a result, there have been all sorts of discoveries as local people came forward with their treasures. Several items are currently being investigated, including a jam pan which is believed to have been included in the sale which took place in Haworth after Patrick Brontë’s death in 1861. The museum has been able to compile a record of Brontë-related material in private hands, including an 1834 Haworth rate book, a wonderful collection of Haworth church hymn sheets dating from the Brontë period and six books believed to have belonged to the Brontës, which were given to their servant, Martha Brown (see photo). Three bound volumes of the Family Economist which belonged to Martha’s sister, Tabitha, who also assisted with domestic work at the Parsonage, were kindly donated to the museum and will go on display at the Parsonage next year.

In February 2010 we are planning to include new displays at the Parsonage which will focus on the Haworth community in which the Brontës’ lived, and it is hoped that some of this newly-discovered material can be included. We would like to thank everyone who got in touch and to reiterate that people are still welcome to contact the museum to take part in the Brontëana surgery.